REAL MEN? AND ABOUT THE MOON

real men-take 1

   At a time when the US needs heroes, we can find them when we look at the moon.

      Once American astronauts walked on the nightly orb
and it is a wonder we made it.

         Director Damien Chazelle has given us a riveting history of how we got there in the brilliant film First Man.
      It is a mistake to think the film is a bio flic of Neil Armstrong, there is a bit of that, but it's really a gritty, bone rattling, nervy immersion into the 1960's space program and the race to beat the Russians to the moon.

       Those men, "spam in the can" as the original Mercury astronauts and test pilots were called, were indeed real men, heroes to be sure. Chazelle, the dazzling 33 year old French-American director who has given us Whiplash and La La Land has created an onscreen history that shows just how risky, unsure, dangerous and jarring it was. 

       If you enjoy Apollo 13 for its look into the "make it up as you go" science and engineering mind meld that was the Apollo program, this gives all of that plus the graphic physical sense of just how tight, rattling, and "on the edge" those early space capsules were. And how uncertain it was. The training sequences will give you an appreciation of the men who endured, or died, in trying to do something as historic as anything the human animal has achieved.

      Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling paint a vivid portrait of Neil Armstrong as a bit of an enigma, which rings true to what little anyone learned about him. Gosling and the cast are superb, but it is the story of the program that speaks to this generation of America.

     For those of us at that age, we may have listened to Walter Cronkite and watched mission control and marveled at the launches and the execution of burns and maneuvers and thought that was great science. It was, up to a point! The discoveries, developments, technological improvements that are now common place to our life serve as a hammer over the head when you get a look at how crude and uncertain the early space program was, by comparison.

     To those of you who have grown up with smart phones, social media and GPS, this is a great bit of history you need see. It wasn't always this way.

     It took extraordinary men and women to do the science and inventing and calculating, but it took heroes, real men to take the rides and the risks.

     Seeing First Man may just help you realize there was a time when American men were up to a challenge without precedent. By comparison the political men who've been filling our screens lately are pathetic.  Whiners, stooges, and ego driven sycophants who could never muster the testosterone it took to push boundaries. First Man celebrates the kind of courage and vision we should be looking for in the men and women who we elect to guide us. The astronauts were not gods without flaws, but they were men, being bold, doing good and willing to risk their lives for the future.
      Had we been not so backwards and repressive to women those first heroes could have been women too. But we've tried to advance. 

is it backwards to our future?

who's knocking at the door?

real men-take 2

           The lead paragraph in the New York Times story sends chills. 

             "The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genetalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law."
             
         Not to beat a dead horse, but to keep this in perspective, and for my grandchildren who may read this in the future, Trump is a rogue President whom the majority of Americans voted against. He does not have the legitimacy, nor does he represent the will of most Americans to begin undoing civilization. That is what the Trump mob seeks and he is playing to his base. Base they are indeed.
        This President is not intelligent, studied, nor does he read. As a man he is unfit and a leader he is unqualified to undertake a deconstruction of a complex federal system of policies and balances that have taken years of bi-partisan effort to develop and achieve. His is the in your face, scorched earth modus operandi of a dictator or a mobster.
We should call him and his followers for what they are regressives. 
       If you were to follow the logic they intone on transgender rights, you can conclude they would say that someone born with a collapsed lung, or heart defect or some other life threatening condition are "people with a biological, immutable condition determined at birth." 
     There are millions of us who think that personhood, being a human being, is the sum of many things and should not be restricted by binary thinking, which is primitive, unsophisticated and something that is detritus of the human evolutionary trail. 
       Catherine Lhamon who led the Education Department's Civil Rights division says it well, "This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients-what people understand about themselves-is irrelevant because the government disagrees."
         Let that soak in for a moment. This rogue President and his mob are trying to force this democratic republic to bend against the arc of history to act like a fascist government. Immediately between 1 and 2 million Americans would be forced to eradicate the gender they live.
         If these authoritarians can do that to transgender people, who else might they seek to delegitimize? They are already into a voter suppression campaign. Who else might they come for?
         Spend a few minutes watching one of his rallies and you are likely to be nauseated or frightened or both. 
         I have a friend who keeps asking me why this nation has not risen up and flooded the streets, shutting down the government and demanding a change? 
         It is a good question. How many warning signs do we need? History should teach us. 

         Where are the heroes? It appears there is a budding crop of women and men, many with combat experience, rising in the political ranks. It is time for people with intelligence, courage, character and a sense of history to put this nation back on the kind of footing that could undertake such a long shot as putting a human on the moon, forcing us to make it up and to quite literally reach for the stars. And who understand that here on the blue marble the journey to full freedom, liberty, a good life and human dignity for all are the most noble of  goals. 

   See you down the trail.

Face Off-Rocket Magic-The Perfect Drive

into a tricky twilight

    Pay close attention. The White House is in a swirl that is unlike anything else the troubled administration has faced to date. We get into that below.

celebrating the left coast

   This veteran traveler finds this scene one of the most pleasing anywhere. Looking south from Nepenthe in Big Sur.

     Hairpins, tight turns, twists, long drops, rocky walls and sensational views compete for a drivers attention and energy. It is invigorating, though we have found friends who are challenged by the mountain ledges and winding highway. 

      It takes work to keep the iconic Pacific Coast Highway open.

the rocket magic show

      That bright light on the horizon is neither moon nor sun. It is a Falcon 9 Space X rocket racing toward space. The launch at Vandenberg AFB is about 85 miles south from the observation point on my deck.

                 As a kid, fascinated by the new space program, I never dreamt I'd be watching rocket launches from my deck.

           The separation created a bit of a cosmic light show.

    The mission was to deploy an Argentine environmental satellite, but the trick of the evening was to land the Falcon booster rocket, back at Vandenberg in a hard ground landing zone.

             It worked well and this shows the Merlin engines firing as the Falcon 9 was headed home.

       Meanwhile thousands of miles away, the satellite was being carried into orbit and we had a new way to measure the depth of our rich star fields.

more sublime

      A longtime friend, who shared ground breaking campus politics and later worked alongside on assignment in Cuba and who's skill and academic/professional arc I have admired, and I were talking like old guys or gals do. We have reached an age where it can be said of us, what they said about Dean Acheson, "Not only did he not suffer fools gladly, he did not suffer them at all."

     Thus you understand our present state of agitation.

We stepped out to look at a particularly clear and crystalline like sky abundant with pricks of cosmic light. That has the effect of downsizing the scale and importance of all human endeavor so as to render us and our intrigues to a scale of gnats. 

still we have the capacity to ruin this blue ball

    So back to the opening tease. Our rogue administration is navigating a new crisis and it is deep water with submerged danger.

     The very awful destruction of a human life, in this case a powerful, well connected Saudi and critic of the new crown prince is at the center of a pernicious brew.

      As David Kirkpatrick wrote in the New York Times, 

"The disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi has set off a diplomatic feud between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, a bipartisan uproar in the United States Congress, tremors of uncertainty in Wall Street and Silicon Valley about how to deal with Saudi Arabia, and a noisy spat between the White House and its closest Arab ally."

           The man who is said to be in charge has yet to demonstrate study or an understanding of the complexity of the world and this is as complex as it gets. He's already gone off half loaded and has reversed himself. Maybe that will help in this instance. Serial liar POTUS is in good company. The Saudi's have been duplicitous in their long relationship with the US since the beginning. The Royal family has lied, cheated, backed terrorists, repressed women, dissidents and free thought for as long as the "kingdom" has been in place. 

       So we have a liar and tax cheat going head to head with a liar and cheat and perhaps killer. Isn't it a damned shame, two human beings of the character and quality of these two have so much power and impact? If you are looking for a precis of how this beautiful and fragile world has been put so upside down, here you have it as the crown prince and the rogue president take measure of each other.

        See you down the trail.

                          

escaping and gobsmacked

     A Miles Davis set blended nicely into a Horace Silver quintet piece as the Pacific coast glided along through the windshield. Southbound on Highway One, watching the cobalt blue sky and turquoise Pacific wash away dystopian blues.

      Nature was giving me a brain massage, kneading away the freak show that is Washington. Art Blakey, and then Ella and Lee Morgan bringing life back to a moribund sense of hope. Being spiked up with the sheer beauty of the California coast, as far away from the evil spell as I can be.  Destination-a better mind set and Morro Bay.

     When we visited as tourists, California was always a mind cleanser. We'd come from back east wired up with the ways of politics and intrigues and work. A few breaths of air, the heat of the sun and the Cali culture made all of that seem so silly, other worldly, curious and far away.

     Feeling Highway 1 under the wheels, and in the groove the liberation spirit was rising and I had a mission.

       Oysters, from Giovanni's on the embarcadero was my assignment for a daughter's birthday party tomorrow. We've been buying oysters and fish from this waterfront since our first adventure in never never land in the late 60's. I love the product of the local fishermen, the staff, and to people watch. I was a  tourist here once and I catch a nostalgic vibe each time I see folks enjoying a vacation and cuing up in line for the take away or being dazzled by the counter case offerings.

      Today, there was some other blue magic. Black and red magic too.

     The Woodies are in town.

    Woodies at a California Surf Shop! That's about as far from the Senate and this White House that you can get, right?

    I heard a woman say to her mate, "You know you're getting old when you remember the Woodies." His retort, "Or when you don't get 'em very often." They snickered and so did a few others milling about. 

     So maybe the Saturday Night Live skits "The Californians" make you smile. We laugh too. But right now California life makes a lot more sense than Washington stupidity and seems a lot healthier as well.
      Here's a man that get's my vote-a man with a real skill and who has them waiting in line

    Cruising back up the 1, with Coltrane, Indy's own Wes Montgomery, Marsalis, Parker and Dizzy I felt better and got it through my head that all things change and pass. Whether you call it karma, universal balance, divine justice, or whatever, action gets responded to with reaction and so it has ever been. 

    I also know I'd rather spend a day on the California coast than in a Senate hearing room. You know, I knew that years ago, but needed simply to get out there and breath it, feel it, enjoy it. I'm not going out on a limb here when I say you can breath it, feel it, and enjoy it wherever you are. It's life and we only have one. We should not let fools, idiots, liars and ideologues take that from us. There are days for fighting, and there are days for recharging. Peace.

    See you down the trail. 

Sheroes and Villains

     No one needs another voice in the fractious chorus but I'm chiming in as a man with daughters, granddaughter and grand son. It has been better than this and we owe it to you make it so again.

 for those too young to understand 

     History will tell you that in the last few days of September 2018 there were moments that held hope we can again be decent and civil. There was Jeff Flake and Chris Coons reaching across ideological and partisan divides to find middle ground and a decent fix, even if only temporary. Their maturity was a stark contrast to a couple of other men. We'll deal with them later, but first a moment for courageous women.

     The real heroes, "sheroes" were the women who confronted Flake in the elevator and demanded that he look at them. Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila, victims of sexual assault, in that moment represented generations of victims of abuse, misogyny, rape, discrimination and the inattention of a paternalistic ruling class.That ugly history fuels the present #metoo #timesup  mindset and puts a heavy thumb on the balance of justice in the context of this particular confirmation hearing.
     I'm one of those who believed Professor Ford. In years of journalism I spoke with many victims. No one would put themselves through what she's been through in the last weeks, certainly not for political ends. It is sick and wrong to even suggest that. She too was courageous.
     Some of the men however looked anything but courageous. There was that memorable hissy fit melt down that looked and sounded like a film portrayal of a tormented and insufferable little southern belle- though the actor is a 63 year old South Carolinian priss. 

     There's been a lot of science trotted out in the last week to explain how a drunk aggressor might not remember an assault. We can only hope that is why and how Brett Kavanaugh denies the accusation. To be clear he has lied. Either he lied back in his youth about his infamous drinking and blacking out, or he is lying about it now. There are simply too many things he said about his own behavior then, and too many who knew him as a drunken youth.

     What was sad and will be the image of his tail spin to notoriety or the haunting image of his unfitness to sit on the court, was the bellicose tantrum of a Judge who blew his judicial cool. There was also the revelation of his partisan heart, hearkening back to when he was part of the Starr investigation that spent millions in an unsuccessful pursuit of the Clintons, who he mentioned in his melt down. If he gets on the Court that meltdown clip will haunt his every decision. How can even his supporters trust him to be impartial, balanced and reasoned after witnessing that? In truth maybe they don't care.
      The Republicans don't seem to care their president is accused of 19 sexual assaults and is a self admitted sexual predator. A lot of us think that is relevant now, especially now.
       So my dear grand children, as Poppy writes this you are too young to absorb it. But as you read this in your time you will at least have a skirmish report that some of us, in fact the majority of Americans, found this perversion of government and behavior wrong. I only hope by the time you read this, we will have corrected the damage. We may not.
        You may find yourselves living in a culture ruled over by a Party that lays down with evil and celebrates venality and permits blatant lying, believes in misogyny, worships the rich and wealthy and doesn't mind destroying our trust in our federal government, cared not about your health care or shrinking economic power. And don't forget, all of this was  led by a traitor to the US.
       You should know there was a time when Republicans had values. But in 2018 they sold their soul to an evil and malignant narcissist and stooge. Maybe by the time you read this, history will reveal that the disease was scourged out of the body politic. But there was a time when there was a epidemic in stupidity, blind loyalty, zealous partisanship.
       A time when a woman said a man did something awful to her, but those people who were in league with the stooge didn't even want to hear about it, and then called it a lynching. A lynching is not when an assaulted woman tells her story. Even their use of that word underscores how insensitive and hateful they are. 
       But dear kids, remember the courage of Professor Ford, and every victim who spoke up, and those who fought to change old attitudes, right old wrongs, and take the law to sexual criminals, even men in power. 

and now for something nice

Among Lana's succulent gardens are lithops, living rocks.

it's bloom time

   See you down the trail

     

SHE SAYS-HE SAYS and A Few Diversions

   In this post, we'll open and close here-something good, something very good and nice. We need diversions, don't we?

  The other stories in the Kavanaugh confirmation coming up, but first a good bye------

one tough old bird

     Our little village tucked between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific lost a big force this weekend, Reggie Perkins at 92. Some of us lost a buddy.

    Here's an sketch of how tough Reg was. A few years ago he had a heart attack on Christmas Eve. He was back on the tennis court New Year's Day.  

     A WWII vet, he had been a battalion chief on the LA Fire Department. He helped build the Cambria Fire Department and served on the community governing board, the CCSD.

      He and his late wife founded a volunteer group that assists people in need or needing medical equipment, or trips to the doctor. They started the annual Easter Egg hunt. He was active in the American Legion and had been a long time treasure of the Odd Fellows benevolence lodge.

     On the tennis court Reg, who played up to only a few months ago despite knees that hurt him every minute, had one of the toughest drop shots in tennis. He chuckled many times as I ran like a banshee to get to the ball, only to watch his patented spin make me look like a fool. I was not alone.

     Reg was one of the founders of the "prayer meeting" that I was invited into about 12 years ago. A group of old boys meeting on someone's porch or deck at precisely 4:00 to have coffee and a cigar, if you were so inclined. Way back the group met on Wednesdays and Sundays. In the last few years the gatherings were on Sunday and wine had been added as well. As a new retiree in the village the tips, insights and history I heard from Reg, John Angel and the late Phil Allen, plus the jokes, made a newbie feel right at home. 
      Reg listened more than he talked, but when he said something, it stuck. These were truly old boys still full of life. 

     It was only a couple of weeks ago Reg was on my deck reminding me I needed to add cushions to my hard wood furniture. We all thought Reg would go on forever. He filled his 92 years and left us all with a target to shoot for. He will be missed.

     What you see in the frame above is the largest lemon I've seen. It was grown locally.  How big is it?

an appropriate pause

     In a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, the new accusations have to be taken seriously enough to be investigated and either tossed aside or validated. 

      What's the rush? Mitch McConnell considered a year a valid wait. The Kentucky wheeler dealer denied America's first African American President a chance to get even a hearing on his nominee. So, what's the rush now? Does someone sense American voters are fed up with Republican rule and acquiescence to the malignant narcissist and Russian stooge?

      More important than Republicans protecting their advantage is the fact the American public deserves resolution as do Judge Kavanaugh and Professor Ford. And the same goes for the more recent accusers and the Judge. 

       But there is an ugly strain in all of this. Some, on both sides of the political aisle, wonder if accusations this old have any bearing on the decision. The default position for many is, what really matters is if the judge is telling the truth. Well of course that matters. 

      But I am one who thinks the behavior all those years ago matter as well, though it is complicated. It is possible that people can change. I think it is entirely possible that youthful and foolish behavior can be left behind. And we know  drinking can contribute to poor judgement and horrendous behavior--but....wrong is wrong, and violence is violence. Also, a patriarchal mind set is wrong and too often has been enabling. 

       The idea that "boys will be boys" is wrong headed and dangerous. That attitude permeates American culture and it was certainly in play at the time that Judge Kavanaugh was a beer drinking, hell raising, privileged preppie and Yalie. It was wrong and if we are ever to get fair and healthy in relationships between men and women we need to recognize it. It shouldn't have been condoned then. It cannot be condoned now. Should it bar him from the court? If it was something he did repeatedly, but now lies about, then yes.

       If Kavanaugh did not in fact act like a boorish, privileged drunk punk then it goes beyond what and how he described himself at the time. Still I'm sure boys who behaved badly have grown to be responsible adults and that may in fact be the case for the judge, unless he is lying now, embarrassed about his previous alleged behavior or too drunk to remember.
       He is where few people go, nominated to the Supreme Court and we have a right to know. Our right to know supersedes his privacy, her privacy, since she had made the accusation and certainly supersedes any thing Mitch McConnell wants.

      The last thing on this is fairness-fairness in this case and the historic issue of fairness in how women have been second class, abused and treated. I read this contemporary culture as being invested by women and men who say

time's up. We want to play by new rules.  We want to play by fair rules.

      I think there is enough accrued injustice and resultant anger that the old white men on the Judiciary Committee better realize what year it is and what fair now means. If Republicans behave as they did in 1991, they belong on the ash bin.

and now to the diversions

there are some things you just can't explain

no matter where you look

relax

at this age, and in this time, diversions are healthy

cheers!

      See you down the trail.